Tangerine
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: There's a certain facade he wants to keep, like maybe he's better than this, and maybe if he pretends he is, he'll get out. Doug/Christa, Dough/Claire


For lowriseflare.

Thanks to Dennis, who is now my main sounding board.

* * *

In Boston every floorboard that creaks tells a distinct story. When walking, there's a mess of plot that gets riled up and even when it's to the point of deafening, no one listens. History lost in the mad rush to forget the past. To move onward and upward.

It's the upward mobility that's forgotten his neighborhood, he's sure of it. From time to time he wonders if anyone even desires it, much less knows what the fuck it means.

It means that he paid attention in sociology, and he wants to make more money than his retard friends who work down at Foodmaster bagging groceries.

Doug makes his way downstairs, tattered backpack in tow and grabs his car keys off of the table. His father hasn't been home in days, but it's no matter, there's enough frozen food in the freezer to last him through Columbus Day and he never really needed the old man for much anyway.

Job since he was fourteen, car at sixteen, moving oh-cees on the street by seventeen. Rolling in dough, for a guy his age, really. Rolling in dough to the point that all the chicks want to fuck him and all the guys either want to be him or kill him. Townie royalty, at seventeen, but he keeps a low profile.

There's no glamour in this shit; it's one of those kill or be killed things. Gotta keep moving, and all of that. A temporary situation, he's told himself from day one but that was nearly a year ago and the sells keep getting better and better and there's always a pretty girl wanting to sit on his prick for a taste.

His hockey bag gets slung over his shoulder and he's out the door, tossing the tattered heap into the back of the '81 Chevy. He doesn't have to drive to school, but he likes to be seen, wants people to know that he can get further than them, in this car. That if he wanted to, he could jump on 93 to Old Orchard Beach for the weekend if he wanted to because he has the _means_.

He's climbing Bunker Hill Ave. during the morning rush; this is the worst part of it.

She slides into the car, boneless; just a bag of bones. Her hand is tangled in her hair and before he can even lean over to give her a kiss, she's lit up. She doesn't need to get driven either, but she likes to be seen too, likes to be seen with him. It'd be easy enough for then both to hop the 93.

"No smoking in the car," he says curtly, but she puffs away at the sloppily rolled joint, the sweet smoke acrid in his lungs. Christa shoots him a shit-eating grin and he asks himself for the thousandth time why the fuck he's in this.

She may not be a saint, but he's miles away from being one himself.

His fingers itch to grab the joint, his lungs beg him to reach over and take it and inhale, deep, deep, deep. Doug holds off, thinks of the playoffs, thinks that if he fails another test, well, shit. For the time being, he crushes a tablet of Nicorette between his teeth and waits for the dull rush. By the end of the day, he'll need something stronger; maybe he'll hold off until after practice.

Unlikely.

For now, he grits his teeth and guns it through a yellow.

There's a certain facade he wants to keep, like maybe he's better than this, and maybe if he pretends he is, he'll get out.

When everyone knows everyone, grew up in the neighborhood, did K-12 together, the grapevine is like an expressway. Skeletons don't remain in closets for too long. News travels fast, and you have to choose what to believe is real and what's embellished.

It's after hockey practice that Mike Velluci slips in the gossip that Christa's been with Mike _O'Doherty_ and Doug does that thing that all men do, puffs up his chest like it doesn't phase him in the least.

Doug turns into his locker, noises from his teammates echoing off of the ancient metal in the locker room; he grits his teeth, swears under his breath.

Like he didn't see this coming, miles and miles and states away. If he were anywhere else his fist would already be making shattering contact with the nearest inanimate object but he keeps his cool, packs up, leaves the school before anyone else can confront him.

He's pulling on a fifth down at The Neck, close enough to Ryan playground that if The Boys decided to clip him, he'd be jacked up, seriously. Doug weighs the consequences and kicks a rock across a puddle large enough to be a small pond and into a cluster of drooping weeds, takes another long pull and thinks how pathetic this is.

Every. Damned. Thing.

The traffic from 99 is loud, frantic, and it distracts him enough so that he doesn't hear the footsteps approaching.

When Doug senses someone behind him, he turns, ready to bust their head in with the bottle, or offer them a drink, whatever the situation calls for, really.

Turns out the bottle's out of his hand before he can say anything. Jimmy takes a very hearty gulps and hands it back, half empty. Perfect. His friend produces his own handle, Jack, from the pocket of his over-sized jacket.

Crisp, cold, they stand and drink for awhile and just don't think.

They don't think for a very, very long time.

"Velluci had something to say after practice," Doug says it without affect; he knows Jimmy knows what it's about. Jimmy, ever the peacekeeper in he and Christa's relationship, and for what? The were brothers as far as Doug was concerned, what more did he want?

Jimmy says something to him like, "Come on kid, come on, who you gonna believe? That fuck Velluci or my sister? Eh?" Jimmy doesn't love anything, but he loves his sister and maybe that's what makes this hard, or maybe it's the fact that they both know she's not the princess Jimmy wants to believe she is.

There's no harm in killing the bottle, and so he does, clean. "Ain't talked to her yet," Doug says and that's that. No point in talking to her either. No point in letting either of them know that he feels betrayed, that he feels like absolutely shit because, really what did he expect.

Rumors are rumors for a reason and there are hundreds out there about Christa, most that were rooted in seedy truths.

No point in pretending.

"Yo, I'll be by the house later if you want me to come with you," and it's not really an offer, and Doug would never make him choose between the two of them. But shit like that, it's what friends are supposed to say.

He pitches the glass bottle halfway across the lot, nearly into the Mystic.

"Nah, I got this."

This is what the end feels like.

She's not at home, and she's not at the park around the block and she isn't in front of the packie pushing. Doug finally finds her at Nicole Guanci's house, on the couch, sitting in the dark, highlighted by the blues and greens from the silent television.

There's no fight, and he hadn't expected one.

Maybe he'd hoped for one, though.

"Whaddya expect, Dougie?" she asks snidely, her body boneless from whatever she's taken today. Only half-conscious, but it'll do.

A fucking rag doll, she doesn't even bother to lie.

"Whaddya expect?" she asks again, cracks her gum and giggles, slides down onto the sticky floor.

Good question.

He expects her maybe to tell him that he'll be back, that he always comes back. He expects something more from her, a statement that he'll never find anyone who can love him like she can, but the great thing is, they both know that's not true.

When it's over and it's done and he's halfway to Waltham for no particular reason, he cries. Going seventy on 93 and he's crying like he hasn't since his mother left. For some reason, he feels like this isn't how it should have gone, none of it.

His life.

What the hell did he expect?

He burned, the first day.

Took it all as penance though, as punishment for his past. Sitting in the sun, pitching rocks into the ocean, he thought of the weather in the Northeast and how they were getting hit with a particularly bad storm front.

It hadn't rained here in weeks.

Doug pretends he misses it because he has to, but he doesn't miss a thing. Moved on and hasn't looked back although he thinks about her all the time. He doesn't think if it-of her-so much as the past but as a sort of fate, a sort of kismet that's intrinsically linked to his soul. He can't _not_ think about it.

About how she might look in the show, about whether the electricity was knocked out by that ice storm, about whether she's moved on and up and away.

From him.

He settles out on the porch during the night with shit Corona and a radio that broadcasts the game from Tropicana. Tonight it's more of the same, gentle wind carrying the sea salt with it, doing nothing to soothe the heat that's settled over the keys. But it's nice, it's fine, and Sox up in the eighth, go figure.

Head full of everything and nothing, Doug anticipates another sleepless night. He's lived here for a year, but hasn't really learned how to _live_ here. But he's learned to stop expecting things.

There are footsteps behind him and they are too deliberate and singular for a stranger, too evenly-paced for a fed. His body responds before his mind can process what's happening. Her scent, it wafts faintly to him, and her mere presence has his hair standing painfully on end.

Doug waits a moment and then turns, not knowing what to expect. But she's there before him, looking windblown and exhausted and everything he's ever needed.

"How?" he asks, too stunned for much more.

Claire is wearing the necklace; he chokes up.

She smiles, _smiles_. If there were a moment that ever defined 'too good to be true' this would be it. "You'd be surprised what that much money can buy." And she dumps her small bag on the floor, sidles up beside him against the worn wood.

"P.I.," she adds with a small laugh.

Her fingers curl around the stem of his beer and she takes a long drink. "You got some color, Doug."

Together, they listen to good 'ole Joe Castiglione call a play at first and stare out across the ocean.

Claire shifts and drags her chair closer.

The floorboards creak.

He doesn't listen.


End file.
